ATLANTA -- Same battle. Fresh faces.

This is the rallying cry for a diverse coalition of civil rights advocates and organizers resisting a predominantly white conservative coalition's push to erode the Voting Rights Act and electoral maps that have empowered Black and other minority voters to elect more of their preferred officials over the past 50 years.

"We must act swiftly," NAACP President Derrick Johnson stated in an interview. "The core issue," Johnson explained to The Associated Press, "is how our nation confronts the drive to regress us to a 1950s-era landscape?"

The century-plus-old NAACP, a pioneer in 20th-century battles for Black political empowerment through courts and Congress, joins dozens of organizations for a Saturday rally and homage to the Civil Rights Movement that birthed the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Events are set for Selma, site of the Bloody Sunday assault on voting rights marchers by white police, and Montgomery, endpoint of a march rerouted two weeks afterward.

Unlike 61 years prior, these Alabama gatherings are not the climax of an ongoing struggle. Rather, activists aim for them to spark a revitalized effort following the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that bars race as a factor in drawing congressional and other districts, further diluting the VRA.

They recognize the challenge of opposing a white-led conservative apparatus firmly positioned in the White House, Congress, federal judiciary, and numerous statehouses across the former Confederacy, home to most Black Americans.

"The VRA formed the heart of the Civil Rights Movement," noted Jared Evans from Louisiana's Power Coalition for Equity and Justice. "They have stripped it away," he added, citing the fresh Louisiana v. Callais ruling on congressional maps and the 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision that ended federal preclearance for elections in discriminatory jurisdictions.

Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church - once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. - declared from the pulpit that this yields "Jim Crow in modern garb."

Warnock invoked King and the prior voting rights era. "We require political strength. We require economic strength. We require individual strength," he urged, telling congregants that "your foes recognize your voice's power" since they labor intensely to suppress it.

Evans drew from deeper history to outline the path forward.

"Our counter must be - and shall be - a second Reconstruction," Evans declared.

Organizers outlined the endgame: securing more victories at the polls, influencing policy debates, and preserving diverse representation across government tiers.

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, the Black congresswoman representing Selma, Alabama, highlighted an urgent task: "revise and revive" the Democrats' key legislation, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act.

Sewell, whose own district faces redistricting risks, noted Democrats seek to "fully" ban partisan gerrymandering.

She added the bill would "restore preclearance," the federal review process dismantled by Shelby.

"We must devise a contemporary standard to expose the outrageous conduct of these state officials," Sewell emphasized.

In Callais, the Supreme Court held that states need not create majority-minority districts under the VRA and must ignore race in boundary-setting. Claiming the law's anti-discrimination tools had turned discriminatory themselves, the ruling lets states reshape strong Black districts - typically Democratic strongholds - by framing changes as partisan, not racial.

President Donald Trump hailed the outcome as "a BIG WIN for Equal Protection under the Law, as it returns the Voting Rights Act to its Original Intent, which was to protect against intentional Racial Discrimination."

Numerous groups attending Alabama's events have already confronted Southern legislatures, where white Republican leaders rushed to revise congressional maps post-Callais.

Alabama and Louisiana reverted to one majority-Black district apiece, dismantling a second mandated by lower courts under prior VRA readings now overturned. Tennessee legislators carved up a majority-Black district by dividing Memphis across three vast ones - a blatant racial gerrymander previously struck down, per Evans.

Foreseeing Callais, Florida and Texas advanced redistricting beforehand. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican barred from reelection, scheduled a June session for 2028 congressional maps. Mississippi and South Carolina have tabled the issue temporarily.

South Carolina Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, a rare white Republican opposing party redistricting, rejected even Trump pressure to sideline Black voters, prioritizing state interests.

Some white conservatives openly discuss unseating Reps. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the sole Black House members from those states.

Louisiana activist Evans foresaw broader targets beyond Congress.

"Expect assaults on state house and senate seats - then local offices," he warned, foretelling "total erasure of Black representation."

VRA-crafted minority-heavy districts have consistently sent Democrats to Congress. Black voters have favored Democrats since President Lyndon B. Johnson enacted the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, prompting most white Southern politicians to switch to the GOP. Latinos and Hispanics generally tilt Democratic too.

This clash influences midterm battles for House control in Trump's final term. Trump urged GOP states to redraw lines safeguarding the party's slim majority.

Yet NAACP's Johnson urged viewing it beyond partisanship or racial regionalism.

Johnson contended white conservatives aim to restrict rights based on faith or relationships, alongside worker-harming economic agendas crossing racial lines. From laws to judge confirmations on constitutional matters, it all hinges on elections.

"This isn't solely a Black issue," Johnson asserted. "It's an American issue."

Evans, Johnson, and peers noted challenges uniting varied groups and energizing voters on redistricting and gerrymandering. Still, they claim Republicans' bold tactics have boosted involvement.

Johnson described a Mississippi organizing call this week drawing 8,000. Evans highlighted crowded capitol corridors in Baton Rouge and Nashville.

Despite Callais, the NAACP and partners litigate new maps in several states. Many aim to boost Black midterm turnout; others alienate conservatives in diverse areas.

Johnson called for endurance.

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education shook foundations, with a unanimous court voiding segregated schools and overturning precedents barring Black rights.

Yet full Southern implementation took 17 years and countless suits. Busing disputes lingered nationwide. Seminal laws arrived a decade post-Brown.

No singular figure leads today's effort.

Johnson recalled that even under King pre-assassination, "strategy debates raged" in the 1950s-60s.

Yet "amid tensions and trials, we reached the proper path."